WD Passport Studio issue or laptop?...

[slick316]

I bought a WD Passport Studio 500GB FW800 this morning from Best Buy. I wanted a firewire drive because I am going to get an SSD soon and want to keep files on a fast external drive (photos, iTunes library, etc.)

The first drive I got was having issues on the firewire side. I was transferring files and the transfer stopped for about 5 minutes and then the drive ejected itself. It was doing this consistently on FW, but not on USB.

After hours of messing with it, I figured I had a defective drive, so I took it back and exchanged it for another. And of course, its doing the same thing.

I'm going to take this drive back, but I was wondering if its the drive or the FW800 on my MBP? USB works just fine on the drive. This is my first time using FW of any kind and so I don't know if its an issue with FW drives or not.

All I want is a FW800 drive that works, especially when it costs $170.

 

[Jaro65]

Hmm, I have 3 of those very drives and I am yet to experience what you're describing. It is sort of suspicious that the 2nd drive would do the same thing. If I were you, I would schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar and let them take a look at your FW800 port. That way at least you'll know for sure. Once you get the port to work, those drives are quite nice. It is too bad that you cannot daisy-chain them, but of course that would then require dedicated power supplies for the drives.

 

[slick316]

I'm definitely going to make an appointment to have them look at my firewire port because it does seem odd that two drives didn't work on FW800 but worked fine on USB.

Thanks for the input, it was really helpful.

 

[Max(IT)]

I have read a lot of issues regarding that model and his fw interface.
And I decided for a iomega Fw hdd

 

[Jaro65]

Yes, but OPs issue doesn't seem to be HD related, so swapping for yet another drive would probably not help.

 

[slick316]

Haven't made it to the Apple Store yet, but I did test out the FW800 port on my friends WD desktop drive that has a FW800 port. It seemed to work just fine without any hiccups.

I'm still going to the Apple Store to have them check out my port, and to see what kind of FireWire drives they have.

I have a question, that WD drive I had came with a FW400 and FW800 cable. However, I didn't see a FW400 port on the drive. Why did they include a FW400 cable with it?